BERLIN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party is on course to narrowly win an election in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, according to preliminary results, giving the German leader a much-needed victory. While the victory is welcome for Merz’s party, there will be plenty of concern at the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party more than doubling its vote share to 19.7 percent, according to preliminary results as of 8.30 p.m. The conservative victory comes at the expense of Merz’s federal coalition partners, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which came in second in the small state of around 4 million inhabitants which borders France, Luxembourg and Belgium. The SPD’s defeat at the hands of its coalition partner could plunge the party deeper into crisis nationally and make the government in Berlin far more fractious as the left-wing party seeks to retrench and appeal to what’s left of its socialist base. Preliminary results indicate that Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is set to come in first with 30.9 percent of the vote, taking control of the state premiership from the SPD after 35 years in opposition. Results as of 8.30 p.m. suggest the SPD’s vote share collapsed by around 10 percentage points, to 25.8 percent. “This is historic for us,” Jens Spahn, the CDU’s parliamentary group leader in Berlin, told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. “It gives us in the CDU a boost at the federal level. But of course, the credit goes above all to our colleagues on the ground,” he added. The CDU’s lead candidate in Rhineland-Palatinate, Gordon Schnieder, pointed to a combative campaign. “We had that will to win; I’ve felt it over the past few months,” Gordon Schnieder said on ARD television. But the biggest winner in terms of vote-share gained is the far-right AfD, which more than doubled its support to 19.8 percent compared with the last state election five years ago when it got 8.3 percent of the vote. The strong showing comes after the AfD’s third-place performance in a state election in Baden-Württemberg earlier this month, illustrating how the party has been able to gain ground outside its eastern strongholds. The outcome in Rhineland-Palatinate is the AfD’s best-ever result in a western German state. The election in Rhineland-Palatinate was the second of five state races to be held this year in what Germans are calling a Superwahljahr — or “super election year” — that is seen as a key test of the national mood as the AfD seeks to overtake Merz’s conservatives in national polls. The AfD is on track to secure big victories in two eastern states in votes set for September, according to polls. “We have achieved record results,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said on Sunday. “Voters appreciate the work we’ve done as opposition party, and we will continue on this path so that we can join the government in the next election,” she added. To do so, the party would need to tear down Germany’s so-called firewall, which has been in place since the end of World War II and has prevented the far right from governing in a coalition with mainstream parties at state and national level. For the struggling SPD, the result was another big setback. The party had the worst performance in a state state election since the end of World War II earlier this month in Baden-Württemberg, coming in at just 5.5 percent. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the party lost almost 10 percentage points compared with its previous result. These poor results are expected to put increasing pressure on the SPD’s national leadership. “I know this result will spark personnel debates,” said Lars Klingbeil, one of the SPD’s national leaders and the country’s finance minister, on national television. “I want us to talk openly about the question: How can we now achieve the best outcome for the Social Democrats?” “We can expect the SPD to now try to assert its own positions more forcefully within this coalition,” said Sabine Kropp, a political science professor at the Free University Berlin. “That will certainly not make governing easier for Friedrich Merz.” The CDU performed well, though, despite growing anxiety about Germany’s economic future as the country’s key manufacturing sectors decline and the fallout from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran mounts. The party improved on its performance compared to the last election in Rhineland-Palatinate, gaining more than 3 percentage points of vote share compared to its 27.7 percent haul last time. Jens Spahn, the CDU’s general secretary, stuck to his party’s key messages on Sunday. “We need growth again in Germany after three years of recession and stagnation,” he said. “That is the defining issue for the nation. It is also the defining issue for the [federal] coalition … We are very aware of that.” The AfD has increasingly been hitting Merz on that theme, with some success. In two states in the former East Germany where elections are set for September, the AfD is so far ahead in polls that its leaders hope to secure an absolute majority in at least one of the contests, a result that would bring the party to real governing power for the first time since its founding in 2013. “While you go on and on about world politics, German industry is collapsing,” Weidel, the AfD leader, told Merz in the Bundestag earlier this week. “The exodus is in full swing.”

Biotechnology is central to modern medicine and Europe’s long-term competitiveness. From cancer and cardiovascular disease to rare conditions, it is driving transformative advances for patients across Europe and beyond . 1         Yet innovation in Europe is increasingly shaped by regulatory fragmentation, procedural complexity and uneven implementation across  m ember s tates. As scientific progress accelerates, policy frameworks must evolve in parallel, supporting the full lifecycle of innovation from research and clinical development to manufacturing and patient access.  The proposed EU Biotech Act seeks to address these challenges. By streamlining regulatory procedures, strengthening coordination  and supporting scale-up and manufacturing, it aims to reinforce Europe’s position in a highly competitive global biotechnology landscape .2       Its success, however, will depend less on ambition than on delivery. Consistent implementation, proportionate oversight and continued global openness will determine whether the  a ct translates into faster patient access, sustained investment and long-term resilience.  Q: Why is biotechnology increasingly seen as a strategic pillar for Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and long-term growth?  Gilles Marrache, SVP and regional general manager, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Africa and Canada, Amgen:  Biotechnology sits at the intersection of health, industrial policy and economic competitiveness. The sector is one of Europe’s strongest strategic assets and a leading contributor to  research and development  growth . 3    At the same time, Europe’s position is under increasing pressure. Over the past two decades, the EU has lost approximately 25  percent of its global share of pharmaceutical investment to other regions, such as the  United States  and China.   The choices made today will shape Europe’s long-term strength in the sector, influencing not only competitiveness and growth, but also how quickly patients can benefit from new treatments.  > Europe stands at a pivotal moment in biotechnology. Our life sciences legacy > is strong, but maintaining global competitiveness requires evolution .” 4   > >  Gilles Marrache, SVP and regional general manager, Europe, Latin America, > Middle East, Africa and Canada, Amgen. Q: What does the EU Biotech Act aim to do  and why is it considered an important step forward for patients and Europe’s innovation ecosystem?  Marrache: The EU Biotech Act represents a timely opportunity to better support biotechnology products from the laboratory to the market. By streamlining medicines’ pathways and improving conditions for scale-up and investment, it can help strengthen Europe’s innovation ecosystem and accelerate patient access to breakthrough therapies. These measures will help anchor biotechnology as a strategic priority for Europe’s future  —  and one that can deliver earlier patient benefit  —  so long as we can make it work in practice.  Q: How does the EU Biotech Act address regulatory fragmentation, and where will effective delivery and coordination be most decisive? Marrache: Regulatory fragmentation has long challenged biotechnology development in Europe, particularly for multinational clinical trials and innovative products. The Biotech Act introduces faster, more coordinated trials, expanded regulatory sandboxes and new investment and industrial capacity instruments.   The proposed EU Health Biotechnology Support Network and a  u nion-level regulatory status repository would strengthen transparency and predictability. Together, these measures would support earlier regulatory dialogue, help de-risk development   and promote more consistent implementation across  m ember  s tates.   They also create an opportunity to address complexities surrounding combination products  —  spanning medicines, devices and diagnostics  —  where overlapping requirements and parallel assessments have added delays.5 This builds on related efforts, such as the COMBINE programme,6 which seeks to streamline the navigation of the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation , 7 Clinical Trials Regulation8 and the Medical Device Regulation9 through a single, coordinated assessment process. Continued clarity and coordination will be essential to reduce duplication and accelerate development timelines .10 Q: What conditions will be most critical to support biotech scale-up, manufacturing  and long-term investment in Europe?  Marrache: Europe must strike the right balance between strategic autonomy and openness to global collaboration. Any new instruments under the Biotech Act mechanisms should remain open and supportive of all types of biotech investments, recogni z ing that biotech manufacturing operates through globally integrated and highly speciali z ed value chains.   Q: How can Europe ensure faster and more predictable pathways from scientific discovery to patient access, while maintaining high standards of safety and quality?   Marrache: Faster and more predictable patient access depends on strengthening end-to-end pathways across the lifecycle.  The Biotech Act will help ensure continuity of scientific and regulatory experti z e, from clinical development through post-authori z ation. It will also support stronger alignment with downstream processes, such as health technology assessments, which  are  critical to success.   Moreover, reducing unnecessary delays or duplication in approval processes can set clearer expectations, more predictable development timelines and earlier planning for scale-up.    Gilles Marrache, SVP and regional general manager, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Africa and Canada, Amgen. Via Amgen. Finally, embedding a limited number of practical tools (procedural, digital or governance-based) and ensuring they are integrated within existing  European Medicines Agency and EU regulatory structures can help achieve faster patient access . 11 Q: What role can stronger regulatory coordination, data use and public - private collaboration play in strengthening Europe’s global position in biotechnology?  Marrache: To unlock biotechnology’s full potential, consistent implementation is essential. Fragmented approaches to secondary data use, divergent  m ember   state interpretations and uncertainty for data holders still limit access to high-quality datasets at scale. The Biotech Act introduces key building blocks to address this.   These include Biotechnology Data Quality Accelerators to improve interoperability, trusted testing environments for advanced innovation, and alignment with the EU AI Act ,12  European Health Data Space13 and wider EU data initiatives. It also foresees AI-specific provisions and clinical trial guidance to provide greater operational clarity.  Crucially, these structures must simplify rather than add further layers of complexity.   Addressing remaining barriers will reduce legal uncertainty for AI deployment, support innovation and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness.  > These reforms will create a moderni z ed biotech ecosystem, healthier > societies, sustainable healthcare systems and faster patient access to the > latest breakthroughs in Europe .” 14 > > Gilles Marrache, SVP and regional general manager, Europe, Latin America, > Middle East, Africa and Canada, Amgen.  Q: As technologies evolve and global competition intensifies, how can policymakers ensure the Biotech Act remains flexible and future-proof?  Marrache:  To remain future-proof, the Biotech Act must be designed to evolve alongside scientific progress, market dynamics and patient needs. Clear objectives, risk-based requirements, regular review mechanisms and timely updates to guidance will enhance regulatory agility without creating unnecessary rigidity or administrative burden.  Continuous stakeholder dialogue combined with horizon scanning will be essential to sustaining innovation, resilience and timely patient access over the long term. Preserving regulatory openness and international cooperation will be critical in avoiding fragmentation and maintaining Europe’s credibility as a global biotech hub.  Q: Looking ahead, what two or three priorities should policymakers focus on to ensure the EU Biotech Act delivers meaningful impact in practice?  Marrache: Looking ahead, policymakers should focus on three priorities for the Biotech Act:    First, implementation must deliver real regulatory efficiency, predictability and coordination in practice. Second, Europe must sustain an open and investment-friendly framework that reflects the global nature of biotechnology.  And third, policymakers should ensure a clear and coherent legal framework across the lifecycle of innovative medicines, providing certainty for the use of  artificial intelligence   —  as a key driver of innovation in health biotechnology.  In practical terms, the EU Biotech Act will be judged not by the number of new instruments it creates, but by whether it reduces complexity, increases predictability and shortens the path from scientific discovery to patient benefit. An open, innovation-friendly framework that is competitive at the global level will help sustain investment, strengthen resilient supply chains and deliver better outcomes for patients across Europe and beyond. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- References 1. Amgen Europe, The EU Biotech Act Unlocking Europe’s Potential, May 2025. Retrieved from https://www.amgen.eu/media/press-releases/2025/05/The_EU_Biotech_Act_Unlocking_Europes_Potential 2. European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation to establish measures to strengthen the Union’s biotechnology and biomanufacturing sectors, December 2025. Retrieved from https://health.ec.europa.eu/publications/proposal-regulation-establish-measures-strengthen-unions-biotechnology-and-biomanufacturing-sectors_en 3. EFPIA, The pharmaceutical sector: A catalyst to foster Europe’s competitiveness, February 2026. Retrieved from https://www.efpia.eu/media/zkhfr3kp/10-actions-for-competitiveness-growth-and-security.pdf 4. The Parliament, Investing in healthy societies by boosting biotech competitiveness, November 2024. Retrieved from https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/partner/article/investing-in-healthy-societies-by-boosting-biotech-competitiveness#_ftn4 5. Amgen Europe, The EU Biotech Act Unlocking Europe’s Potential, May 2025. Retrieved from https://www.amgen.eu/docs/BiotechPP_final_digital_version_May_2025.pdf   6. European Commission, combine programme, June 2023. Retrieved from https://health.ec.europa.eu/medical-devices-topics-interest/combine-programme_en  7. European Commission. Medical Devices – In Vitro Diagnostics, March 2026. Retrieved from https://health.ec.europa.eu/medical-devices-vitro-diagnostics_en 8. European Commission, Clinical trials – Regulation EU No 536/2014, January 2022. Retrieved from https://health.ec.europa.eu/medicinal-products/clinical-trials/clinical-trials-regulation-eu-no-5362014_en 9. European Commission, Simpler and more effective rules for medical devices – Commission proposal for a targeted revision of the medical devices regulations, December 2025. Retrieved from https://health.ec.europa.eu/medical-devices-sector/new-regulations_en#mdr 10. Amgen Europe, The EU Biotech Act Unlocking Europe’s Potential, May 2025. Retrieved from https://www.amgen.eu/docs/BiotechPP_final_digital_version_May_2025.pdf   11. AmCham, EU position on the Commission Proposal for an EU Biotech Act 12. European Commission, AI Act | Shaping Europe’s digital future, June 2024. Retrieved from https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai 13. European Commission, European Health Data Space, March 2025. Retrieved from https://health.ec.europa.eu/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/european-health-data-space-regulation-ehds_en 14. The Parliament, Why Europe needs a Biotech Act, October 2025. Retrieved from https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/partner/article/why-europe-needs-a-biotech-act -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Amgen Inc * The ultimate controlling entity is Amgen Inc * The political advertisement is linked to advocacy on the EU Biotech Act. More information here.

When Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attended her first European leaders’ summit in Brussels in December 2022, few would have expected her to become one of the most effective politicians sitting around the table four years later.   In fact, few would have expected that she’d still be there at all, as Italian leaders are famously short-lived. Remarkably, her right-wing Brothers of Italy party looks as rock solid in polls as it did four years ago, and she now has her eye on the record longest term for an Italian premier — a feat she is due to accomplish in September. A loss in what is set to be a nail-biting referendum on the bitter and complex issue of judicial reform on March 22 and 23 would be her first major set back — and would puncture the air of political invincibility that she exudes not only in Rome but also in Brussels. Meloni has thrived on the European stage, and has become adept at using the EU machinery to her advantage. Only in recent months, she has made decisive interventions on the EU’s biggest dossiers, such as Russian assets, the Mercosur trade deal and carbon markets, leveraging Italy’s heavyweight status to win concessions in areas like farm subsidies. Profiting from France’s weakness, Meloni is also establishing a strong partnership with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — a double act between the EU’s No. 1 and No. 3 economies — to mold the bloc’s policies to favor manufacturing and free trade. CRASHING DOWN TO EARTH For a few more days, at least, Meloni looks like a uniquely stable and influential Italian leader. Nicola Procaccini, a Brothers of Italy MEP very close to Meloni and co-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, called the government’s longevity a “real novelty” in the European political landscape. “Until recently, Italy couldn’t insert itself into the dynamics of those that shape the European Union — essentially the Franco-German axis — because it lacked governments capable of lasting even a year,” said the MEP. “Giorgia Meloni is not just a leader who endures; she is a leader who shapes decisions and influences the direction to be taken.” But critics of the prime minister said a failure in the referendum would mark a critical turning point. Her rivals would finally detect a chink in her armor and move to attack her record, particularly on economic weaknesses at home. The unexpected, new message to other EU leaders would be clear: She won’t be here for ever. Brando Benifei, an MEP in Italy’s center-left opposition Democratic Party, conceded that other EU leaders saw her as the leader of a “ultra-stable government.” But, if she were to lose the referendum, he argued “she would inevitably lose that aura.” “Everyone remembers how it ended for Renzi’s coalition after he lost his referendum,” Benifei added, in reference to former Democratic Party Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who resigned after his own failed referendum in 2016. MACHIAVELLIAN MELONI Meloni owes much of her success on the EU stage to canny opportunism. At the beginning of the year, she slyly spotted an opportunity — suddenly wavering on the Mercosur trade deal, which Rome has long supported — to win extra cash for farmers that would please her powerful farm unions at home. She held off from actually killing the agreement, something that would have lost her friends among other capitals. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a signing ceremony during an Italy-Germany Intergovernmental Summit in Rome on Jan. 23, 2026. | Pool photo by Michael Kappeler/AFP via Getty Images The Italian leader “knows how to read the room very well,” said one European diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss European Council dynamics.   Teresa Coratella, deputy head of the Rome office at the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, said Meloni had  “a political cunning” that allowed her to build “variable geometries,” allying with different European leaders by turn based on the subject under discussion. One of her first victories came on migration in 2023. She was able to elevate the issue to the top level of the European Council, and even managed to secure a visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Tunisia, eventually resulting in the signing of a pact on the issue. Others wins followed.  Last December, with impeccable timing, Meloni unexpectedly threw her lot in with Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever at the last minute, scuppering a plan to fund Ukraine’s defenses with Russian frozen assets, instead pushing for more EU joint debt. Italian diplomats said that Meloni is a careful student, showing up to summits always having read the relevant documents, and having asking the apposite questions. That wasn’t always the case with former Italian prime ministers.  They said her choice of functionaries — rewarding competence over and above political affiliation — also helps. These include her chief diplomatic consigliere Fabrizio Saggio and Vincenzo Celeste, ambassador to the EU. Neither is considered close politically to Meloni.   Her biggest coup, though, has been shunting aside France as Germany’s main European partner on key files, with her partnership with Merz even being dubbed “Merzoni.” ROLLING THE DICE Meloni’s strength partly explains why she dared call the referendum. Italy’s right has for decades complained that the judiciary is biased to the left. It’s a feud that goes back to the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) anti-corruption drive in the 1990s that pulverized the political elite of that time, and the constant court cases against playboy premier and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, father of the modern center-right. The proposal in the plebiscite is to restructure the judiciary. But it’s a high-stakes gamble, and why she called it seems something of a puzzle. The reforms themselves are highly technical — and by the government’s own admission won’t actually speed up Italy’s notoriously long court cases.    Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni attends the European Council meeting on June 26, 2025 in Brussels. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images Instead, the vote has turned into a more general vote of confidence in Meloni and her government. The timing is tough as Italians widely dislike her ally U.S. President Donald Trump and fear the war in Iran will drive up their already high power prices. Still, she is determined not to suffer Renzi’s fate and insists she will not step down even if she loses the referendum.  Asked at a conference on Thursday whether a loss would make Rome appear less stable in its dealings with other European capitals, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was adamant that the referendum has “absolutely nothing to do with the stability of the government.” “This government will last until the day of the next national elections,” he added. A victory on Monday will put the wind in her sails before the next general elections, which have to be held by the end of 2027. It would also set the stage for other reforms that Meloni wants to enact: a move to a more presidential system, with a direct election of the prime minister, making the role more like the French presidency.  But a loss would galvanize the opposition — split between the populist 5Star Movement, and the traditional center-left Democratic Party. The danger is her rivals would round on her particularly over the economy. Even counting for the fact Italy has benefitted from the largest tranche of the Covid-era recovery package — growth has been sluggish, consistently below 1 percent, falling to 0.5 percent in 2025.  “We have a situation in which the country is increasingly heading toward stagnation and we have to ask ourselves what would have happened if we had not had the boost of the Recovery Fund,” said Enrico Borghi, a senator from Italia Viva, Renzi’s party. Procaccini, however, defended her, both on employment and growth. “It could be better,” he conceded. “But we are still talking about growth, unlike countries that in this historical phase are recording a decline, as in the case of Germany.”

LONDON — Trade Secretary Peter Kyle is expected to announce the U.K.’s steel strategy at Tata Steel UK’s mill in Port Talbot on Thursday. The strategy will set out new protections for Britain’s steel sector, slashing quotas on imports of many products from overseas while raising duties outside those caps to 50 percent, two people familiar with the announcement told POLITICO. “The tariff will be doubled to 50 percent in line with what the Europeans have done, the Canadians have done, the Americans have done,” a senior business representative familiar with the plans said. There will “be some exemptions” for products British steelmakers don’t make, they added. British officials have told both U.K. steel producers and downstream importers, who use steel in everything from construction to automotive manufacturing, to expect a 50 percent duty outside of new quotas in a move “likely to be similar to the EU,” said a second industry figure. Both industry figures were granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. Last October, the EU announced plans to reduce its quotas on foreign steel imports by almost half and levy a 50 percent tariff on goods exceeding the cap. The move is part of an overhaul of so-called safeguard protections that expire in both the EU and U.K., under World Trade Organization rules, at the end of June. The U.K.’s strategy setting out the future of the sector has been repeatedly delayed. On Thursday, Kyle will set out a new scheme of trade protections to replace the so-called steel safeguards scheme. A Tata Steel UK executive told lawmakers in early February that the government “had eight weeks to save the British steel industry” by shielding it with new protectionist measures from a glut of cheap imports from countries like China. Steel importers, however, are unlikely to get the full gamut of exemptions under the scheme they had hoped for, said the second industry figure, noting they’re “prepared for the worst.” The government will “jeopardize downstream manufacturers if they make the import restrictions too prohibitive,” they said. “There will be some exemptions, but not as many as they hoped for,” said the senior business representative. “This government has been crystal clear in committing to a bright and sustainable future for steelmaking and steel jobs in the U.K., and we will publish a steel strategy shortly setting out how we can achieve a sustainable future for the sector,” said a government spokesperson.

Dr. Daniel Steiners This is not an obituary for Germany’s economic standing. It is an invitation to shift perspective: away from the language of crisis and toward a clearer view of our opportunities — and toward the confidence that we have more capacity to shape our future than the mood indicators might suggest. For years, Germany seemed to be traveling along a self-evident path of success: growth, prosperity, the title of export champion. But that framework is beginning to fray. Other countries are catching up. Parts of our industrial base appear vulnerable to the pressures of transformation. And global dependencies are turning into strategic vulnerabilities. In short, the German model of success is under strain. Yet a glance at Europe’s economic history suggests that moments like these can also contain enormous potential — if strategic thinking and decisive action come together. One example, which I find particularly striking, takes us back to 1900. At the time, André and Édouard Michelin were producing tires in a relatively small market, when the automobile itself was still a niche product. They could have focused simply on improving their product. Instead, they thought bigger; not in silos, but in systems. With the Michelin Guide, they created incentives and orientation for greater mobility: workshop directories, road maps, and recommendations for hotels and restaurants made travel more predictable and attractive. What began as a service booklet for motorists gradually evolved into an entire ecosystem — and eventually into a globally recognized benchmark for quality. > In times of change, those who recognize connections and are willing to shape > them strategically can transform uncertainty into lasting strength. What makes this example remarkable is that the real innovation did not lie in the tire itself or merely even a clever marketing idea to boost sales. It lay in something more fundamental: connected thinking and ecosystem thinking. The decision to see mobility as a broad space for value creation. It was the courage to break out of silos, to recognize strategic connections, to deepen value chains — and to help define the standards of an emerging market. That is precisely the lesson that remains relevant today, including for policymakers. In times of change, those who recognize connections and are willing to shape them strategically can transform uncertainty into lasting strength. Germany’s industrial health economy is still too often viewed in public debate in narrowly sectoral terms — primarily through the lens of health care provision and costs. Strategically, however, it has long been an industrial ecosystem that spans research, development, manufacturing, digital innovation, exports and highly skilled employment. Just as Michelin helped shape the ecosystem of mobility, Germany can think of health as a comprehensive domain of value creation. The industrial health economy: cost driver or engine of growth? Yes, medicines cost money. In 2024, Germany’s statutory health insurance system spent around €55 billion on pharmaceuticals. But much of that increase reflects medical progress and the need for appropriate care in an aging society with changing disease patterns. Innovative therapies benefit both patients and the health system. They can improve quality and length of life while shifting treatment from hospitals into outpatient care or even into patients’ homes. They raise efficiency in the system, reduce downstream costs and support workforce participation. > In short, the industrial health economy is not merely part of our health care > system. It is a key industry, underpinning economic strength, prosperity and > the financing of our social security systems. Despite public perception, pharmaceutical spending has remained remarkably stable for years, accounting for roughly 12 percent of total expenditures in the statutory health insurance system. That figure also includes generics — medicines that enter the ‘world heritage of pharmacy’ after patent protection expires and remain available at low cost. Truly innovative, patent-protected medicines account for only about seven percent of total spending. Against these costs stands an economic sector in which Germany continues to hold a leading international position. With around 1.1 million employees and value creation exceeding €190 billion, the industrial health economy is among the largest sectors of the German economy. Its high-tech products, bearing the Made in Germany label, are in demand worldwide and contribute significantly to Germany’s export surplus. In short, the industrial health economy is not merely part of our health care system. It is a key industry, underpinning economic strength, prosperity and the financing of our social security systems. Its overall balance is positive. The central question, therefore, is this: how can we unlock its untapped potential? And what would it mean for Germany if we fail to recognize these opportunities while economic and innovative capacity increasingly shifts elsewhere? Global dynamics leave little room for hesitation Governments around the world have long recognized the strategic importance of the industrial health economy — for health care, for economic growth and for national security. China is demonstrating remarkable speed in scaling and implementing biotechnology. The United States, meanwhile, illustrates how determined industrial policy can look in practice. Regulatory authorities are being modernized, approval procedures accelerated and bureaucratic barriers systematically reduced. At the same time, domestic production is being strategically strengthened. Speed and market size act as magnets for capital — especially in a sector where research is extraordinarily capital-intensive and requires long-term planning security. When innovation-friendly conditions and economic recognition of innovation meet a large, well-funded market, global shifts follow. Today roughly 50 percent of the global pharmaceutical market is located in the United States, about 23 percent in Europe — and only 4 to 5 percent in Germany. This distribution is no coincidence; it reflects differences in economic and regulatory environments. At the same time, political pressure is growing on countries that benefit from the American innovation engine without offering an equally attractive home market or recognizing the value of innovation in comparable ways. Discussions around a Most Favored Nation approach or other trade policy instruments are moving in precisely that direction — and they affect Europe and Germany directly. For Germany, the implications are clear. Those who want to attract investment must strengthen their competitiveness. Those who want to ensure reliable health care must appropriately reward new therapies. Otherwise, these global dynamics will inevitably affect both the economy and health care at home. Already today, roughly one in four medicines introduced in the United States between 2014 and 2023 is not available in Europe. The gap is even larger for gene and cell therapies. The primacy of industrial policy: from consensus to action — now Germany does not lack potential or substance. We still have a strong industrial base, a tradition of invention, outstanding universities and research institutions, and a private sector willing to invest. Political initiatives such as the coalition agreement, the High-Tech Agenda and plans for a future strategy in pharmaceuticals and medical technology provide important impulses, which I strongly welcome. > A fair market environment without artificial price caps or rigid guardrails is > the strongest magnet for private capital, long-term investment and a resilient > health system. But programs must now translate into a coherent action plan for growth. We need innovation-friendly and stable framework conditions that consider health care, economic strength and national security together — as a strategic ecosystem, not as separate silos. The value of medical innovation must also be recognized in Germany. A fair market environment without artificial price caps or rigid guardrails is the strongest magnet for private capital, long-term investment and a resilient health system. Faster approval procedures, consistent digitalization and a determined reduction of bureaucracy are essential if speed is once again to become a competitive advantage and a driver of innovation. Germany can reinvent itself, of that I am convinced. With courage, strategic determination and an ambitious push for innovation. The choice now lies with us: to set the right course and unlock the potential that is already there.

BERLIN — Only last week German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was “on the same page” as U.S. President Donald Trump over the goals of the Iran war. He is no longer sounding so enthusiastic. Europe’s most powerful leader went out on a limb to stick close to Washington in the early days of the conflict, while his peers such as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the U.S.-Israeli strikes as illegal. But Merz is now having to perform an abrupt U-turn as the economic and security impacts of the war on the EU’s biggest economy become clearer, and is publicly airing his fears that Trump has no exit strategy to end the fighting in the Persian Gulf. On Friday, during a visit to Norway, Merz struck his most critical tone to date. He argued the war raised “major questions” about security and added: “It is having a massive impact on our energy costs, and it has the potential to trigger large-scale migration.” That’s a far cry from his trip to Washington last week. Visiting Trump in the Oval Office, Merz voiced his support for Trump’s war aims. He gave a fawning chuckle when the president bragged of the damage U.S. airstrikes had inflicted on Iran and declared that Berlin was fully aligned with Washington regarding the need to eliminate the dictatorship in Tehran. But the chancellor no longer appears to be in a laughing mood as the repercussions of the war — now set to enter its third week — increasingly threaten myriad German and European interests. Merz’s political isolation among key European allies and growing pressure from his center-left coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), have pushed the chancellor to take a tougher line on the war in recent days. Merz increasingly fears the Iran war will deepen his country’s formidable economic woes — with Germany’s already-ailing manufacturing sector taking another hit thanks to soaring energy costs. He also worries it could set back European efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine and potentially unleash a new refugee crisis just as he is battling to prevent the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party from becoming the country’s most popular political force. The ramifications of the Iran war on Ukraine are also sending shivers through Berlin. Merz on Friday condemned the Trump administration’s decision late Thursday to ease oil sanctions on Russia in an effort to bring down global oil prices, fearing the move will only serve to refill the Kremlin’s war chest and sustain Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He called the move “wrong.” “We want to ensure that Russia does not exploit the war in Iran to weaken Ukraine,” Merz added. ‘ENDLESS WAR’ Merz has sent mixed messages on Iran since the U.S. and Israel launched their attacks. The day after the first assault, Merz expressed doubts that they would succeed in toppling the regime in Tehran and warned of an Iraq-style quagmire. Still, he said, Germany was in no position to “lecture” its allies and supported their goal of regime change. Those mixed messages have even led to confusion on the German position within Iran’s government. “We don’t know what the real position of Germany is,” the Iranian ambassador to Germany, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, told POLITICO. “We are hearing different voices from within the government.” But Merz took a somewhat tougher line on the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Wednesday this week when, standing alongside Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš in Berlin, he expressed concern that the U.S. and Israel have no plan for ending the conflict. “We have no interest in an endless war,” Merz said at the time. That shift is at least partly due to growing pressure within the EU and inside his own coalition government, with center-left SPD lawmakers increasingly attacking Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) for being soft on Trump and the Iran strikes.  “The CDU position is increasingly losing ground,” said René Repasi, an SPD lawmaker in the European Parliament. Repasi said that European Council President António Costa’s criticism of the U.S. and Israeli strikes earlier this week illustrated Berlin’s isolation. “He knows that the majority of member states are behind him,” Repasi said of Costa. This week, even Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — a frequent Trump ally — joined the chorus of EU leaders condemning the attacks on Iran as against international law. Merz hasn’t gone that far — and is unlikely to do so. But SPD politicians in Berlin say Merz’s tougher rhetoric in the past couple days is due at least partly to pressure they’ve applied. “There were different rounds within the coalition where we insisted very strongly that we should clearly reject this war,” Adis Ahmetovic, the leading foreign policy lawmaker for the SPD, told Deutschlandfunk radio earlier this week. ‘ECONOMIC AND REFUGEE FEARS’ But Merz is also being driven by the economic risks of a prolonged war, particularly as Germany’s energy-intensive manufacturing sector — which was already sputtering before the war started — is particularly vulnerable to cost spikes. “Growth prospects are likely to continue to deteriorate,” Veronika Grimm, one of the country’s leading economists, wrote in an essay for German newspaper Handelsblatt. “For Germany, this means that hopes for a return to growth are once again being dampened.”  Germany is also expected to be among the EU countries most impacted if the escalating war in the Middle East creates a new refugee crisis. Germany would be the most popular destination for Iranians fleeing the war, with 28 percent of Iranians identifying it as their most likely destination, according to a study by the Berlin-based Rockwool Foundation. That is due largely to the fact that Germany is already home to a large population of Iranian refugees. These challenges come as Merz’s conservatives face a series of state elections in which rising anxiety over the economy and war abroad are playing a key part — and are helping propel the far right. In view of the rising risks, Merz on Friday said he would work to develop a plan for ending the war through talks with the G7 and Israel. “Germany is not a party to this war, and we do not want to become one,” Merz said. “And in that regard, all our efforts are focused on ending the war.”

BRUSSELS — The EU will respond “firmly and proportionately” to any breach of its trade deal with the U.S. reached last year, European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said Thursday. Gill was responding to probes into unfair trade practices launched by the U.S. overnight against the EU and other countries. The broad-spectrum investigations could result in the imposition of new tariffs, raising concerns in Brussels that this would breach the terms of the deal struck at President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland. “We have not received any indication that the U.S. administration intends to deviate from those commitments,” Gill told a press conference. He added that the Commission would reach out to its U.S. counterparts to clarify how the investigations would affect the Turnberry deal. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Wednesday that his department was looking into whether countries’ policies are fueling excess manufacturing capacity — producing far more goods than demand supports — which officials say can flood global markets and squeeze U.S. manufacturers. The so-called Section 301 probes come after the U.S. Supreme Court last month struck down Trump’s original wide-ranging tariffs. The White House subsequently imposed blanket 10 percent tariffs in the interim as it works to enact new duties. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this week gave private assurances to EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič that the U.S. intends to stick to the transatlantic trade deal, which sets a tariff ceiling of no higher than 15 percent on most EU exports.

The war with Iran is sucking up expensive U.S. air defense munitions that Ukraine desperately needs, putting future deliveries at risk and threatening Kyiv’s ability to counter Russian ballistic missile attacks. The U.S. and Gulf allies have burned through hundreds of Patriot missiles shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles and attack drones, eating up stockpiles that might have gone to Ukraine. The dynamic has put the Trump administration’s expanding war against the Iranian regime in direct conflict with Kyiv’s reliance on contracts for U.S.-made air defenses, according to interviews with 10 top European officials and two U.S. lawmakers. Those allies fear that Russia will seize the initiative by attempting to lay waste to more of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and try to move the front lines while the U.S. and Europe are distracted with a separate war — and stockpile concerns — of their own. “If [Vladimir] Putin was feeling any pressure to negotiate before, and it’s not clear he was, it’s gone for now,” said a EU official. “The U.S. is distracted and burning through some of the weapons Europe wants to purchase for Ukraine. … It’s a very gloomy scenario.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday warned of impending shortages. The overall deficit of missiles for Patriot systems “is not because of this war in the Middle East,” Zelenskyy told WELT, part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO. But “this war will have [an] influence on decreasing the number of missiles, decreasing the opportunity to get more missiles” for Ukraine. The scale of attacks against American and allied forces in the Gulf is beyond anything seen in decades. The United Arab Emirates’ defense ministry said Tuesday that Iran had launched 1,475 drones, 262 ballistic missiles and eight cruise missiles at the country since the war began, many of which were met with U.S.-made Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles. More than 1,600 of those drones and missiles were brought down — underscoring the intensity of the air defense fire. A Bloomberg Intelligence report estimated that the U.S. and its partners in the region have fired as many as 1,000 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors at Iranian missiles and drones since the start of the war, a number that dwarfs the replacement rate for the expensive — and hard to produce — weapon. The missiles take months to manufacture, and the war in Ukraine has led to allies across the globe rushing to put in new orders. Lockheed Martin agreed in January to triple its production of Patriot missiles — in part due to demands from the Trump administration — going from about 600 annually in 2025 to 2,000 to meet exploding worldwide demand. But it will take several years for the company’s factories to expand capacity sufficiently to meet any new requirements. “There’s a lot of confusion on that question, of what the priorities are going to be for Ukraine versus the Middle East, and specifically, how long and how high the demands are for these munitions,” said U.S. Sen Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and Ukraine ally. “Europeans are frustrated that we’re not more forthcoming in terms of our production capacity, and that the difficulty of ramping up production is used as an excuse for failing to provide more.” In the years before conflicts erupted in Europe and the Middle East, the U.S. only produced about 270 Patriot missiles a year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Industry has a long way to go before it can meet expected demand. “It goes without saying that Ukraine will be affected as the U.S. will prioritize national needs” in the coming months, an official from a NATO country said. The official, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive national defense issues. One German official said that “sluggish” deliveries of weapons to Ukraine in November and December have significantly contributed to the destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. And that could just be the start. “The worry is that [Donald] Trump will break agreements, withhold supplies, and that Putin will ruthlessly exploit this,” the official said. Allies also are increasingly concerned about skyrocketing prices for sought-after American weapons. “Some prices of weapon systems are clearly doubled,” said a second official from a NATO country. “That’s the ballpark and degree of price issues we are having.” Beyond the near-term scramble for air defenses, Europeans are worried that the broader Ukrainian arms pipeline could be in jeopardy as U.S. forces — and their allies — expand their arsenals amid escalating conflict in the Middle East. The U.S. and NATO set up the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, last year as a way to keep weapons flowing into Ukraine, including helping Kyiv procure much-needed Patriot air defense interceptors. The Trump administration stopped American military aid for Ukraine last year, and PURL has served as a way to keep the spigot open. It allows European countries to buy American equipment and then donate it to Kyiv. Finnish defense secretary Antti Häkkänen said his government has “emphasized there has to be some kind of a European industry pillar, and Ukrainian pillar,” that would allow some manufacturing to move from the U.S. to the continent so Ukraine can quickly get what it needs. Stefanie Bolzen at WELT, Joe Gould and Eli Stokols contributed to this report.

BERLIN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz often warns that Germany is living through deeply insecure times — and increasingly, it looks like his own government could become a casualty. Merz’s ideologically divided government is under growing pressure to respond to rising anxiety in Germany over the country’s economic future as key manufacturing sectors decline and the fallout from wars in Ukraine and Iran mounts. Merz’s coalition of conservatives and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) is increasingly at odds over how to revive Germany’s stagnating economy. Both parties were defeated by the Greens in a vote in the state of  Baden-Württemberg on Sunday, and polls suggest further chastening losses are in store when voters in two eastern German states — bastions of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) — vote later this year. In Baden-Württemberg, where the AfD finished a strong third, Merz’s conservatives came up shy in their effort to recapture power in a state that was long a conservative power base, while the SPD, Germany’s oldest political party, suffered its worst election performance since World War II, coming in with a humiliating 5.5 percent.  The election “was one of the darkest days I could imagine,” said Andreas Stoch, the SPD’s lead candidate in Baden-Württemberg. “To be honest, I never could have imagined standing in front of the press to announce a single-digit election result for the SPD.” As political pressure rises, both the SPD and Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are being pushed to reframe a series of policies — from reforms meant to restore economic competitiveness to the government’s stance on the war in Iran — to appeal to their bases. That could well make the divergent coalition far more fractious. SPD’s lead candidate in Baden-Württemberg Andreas Stoch. | Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images Merz on Monday said his coalition will endure — less out of conviction, but more due to the inescapable political reality, calling it “the only option for a stable government” in the political center given the rise of radical parties.  “I have already spoken with the two party leaders of the SPD, and we agree that we will, of course, continue the work of the coalition and that we will also try to shape this work in the interests of the country so that we can emerge from our country’s economic weakness,” he said. There’s another electoral test coming in less than two weeks, in the the small southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Polling suggests the SPD and CDU are neck and neck in the race to win the state, and that the AfD is poised to more than double its support. ‘NOT OUR WAR’ One of the major areas of disagreements between Merz’s conservatives and the SPD involves reforms intended to make the economy more competitive. While Merz’s conservatives are pushing for cuts to social spending, the SPD is under rising pressure to preserve the safety net in order to prevent the defection of what remains of its socialist base. Germany’s constitutional spending limits are another area of tension. While the coalition partners agreed to loosen the rules for defense purposes, SPD lawmakers want to further relax them. Merz’s conservatives, however, reject that notion, and Merz doubled down on that position on Monday. “Further debt is out of the question,” he said. Another issue that is increasingly dividing the coalition is Merz’s supportive stance on the U.S. and Israel’s attacks against Iran. The chancellor reiterated that support Monday. Friedrich Merz has vowed that his conservatives will maintain their “firewall” around the AfD, refusing to govern in national and state coalitions with the far-right party. | Nadja Wohlleben/Getty Images “You know that Iran supports Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine, that Iran is largely responsible for the terror of Hamas, that Iran is the center of international terrorism, and that this center must be shut down, and the Americans and Israelis are doing that in their own way,” Merz said. The vast majority of Germans are against the strikes on Iran, according to surveys, and SPD lawmakers argue that the strikes are a violation of international law. “I say very clearly: This is not our war,” SPD national leader Lars Klingbeil, who also serves as Germany’s vice chancellor and finance minister, said in an interview with RND over the weekend.  In Baden-Württemberg, surveys suggest concerns about wars abroad fused with worries about the economy to generate a diffuse sense of anxiety. Almost three quarters (72 percent) of voters said they have “great concerns” about Europe’s security, according to a survey done for German public television, and more than half (56 percent) said they feared they wouldn’t have enough money in old age. Perhaps most concerning for Merz’s government is that the AfD gained significant vote share in Baden-Württemberg despite facing allegations of systemic nepotism that threaten to shatter its self-styled anti-establishment image. In the two states in the former East Germany where elections are to be held in September, the AfD is far ahead of all other parties in polls. The Russia-friendly party’s popularity in the East is partly driven by concerns over the Merz government’s support for Ukraine; in one recent poll carried out in four eastern German states, a majority of people said they believe that this support “goes too far.“ Merz has vowed that his conservatives will maintain their “firewall” around the AfD, refusing to govern in national and state coalitions with the far-right party. But AfD leaders believe that if they continue to gain ground by hitting Merz’s party on the economy, that firewall will crumble. “If the conservatives get five bad results in a row, at some point the pressure will become so great that it will either lead to their destruction or the firewall will be gone,” said Marc Bernhard, a national AfD lawmaker from Baden-Württemberg. “The conservatives will have to make a move. That will be this year’s outcome.”

The Justice Department posted a trio of FBI interviews with a woman who alleged President Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a young teenager after she was introduced to him by Jeffrey Epstein. The woman’s central allegation, according to FBI summaries of her interviews with investigators, known as FBI 302s, is that Trump hit her after she bit his penis when he attempted to force her to perform oral sex. The three files come as Democrats are investigating whether the department purposefully withheld materials that included sexual assault allegations against Trump. Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations and he hasn’t been charged with a crime in connection with them. There’s no evidence to suggest Trump took part in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. Many of the materials released by the Justice Department lack substantiation or context. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the allegations “completely baseless accusations, backed by zero credible evidence, from a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history.” “The total baselessness of these accusations is also supported by the obvious fact that Joe Biden’s department of justice knew about them for four years and did nothing with them — because they knew President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. As we have said countless times, President Trump has been totally exonerated by the release of the Epstein Files.” In the files, dated between August and October 2019, the woman, whose name is redacted, alleges that when she was between 13 and 15 years old, Epstein took her to either New York or New Jersey, where, “in a very tall building with huge rooms,” he introduced her to Trump. Trump, she said, “didn’t like that I was a boy-girl,” which the interview notes interpreted to mean tomboy. The woman said other people were present, but she couldn’t recall who. Trump asked them to leave the room, then said “something to the effect of, ‘Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be,’” according to the interview notes. Trump then unzipped his pants and put her head “down to his penis,” she recalled in the interview. She said she “bit the shit out of it.” In response, she said he pulled her hair and punched her on the side of her head. “Get this little bitch the hell out of here,” the woman recalled him saying. At that point, she said, people reentered the room. The FBI interviews don’t contain information about how the incident ended or how the woman exited the encounter. In one of the interviews, the woman disclosed that she had begun working with attorneys and “wanted to be upfront” about “her pending civil case in the event the agents determined a conflict of interest could occur.” The woman said she or people close to her received a series of threatening phone calls, one of which included a message left on the phone of a co-worker but intended for her. She told the FBI she believed the calls were related to Epstein, and “stated under her breath that if it was not Epstein, maybe it was the ‘other one.’” When agents pressed her on who she meant, she said Trump, according to the interview notes. In the final interview, agents asked her again about her allegations concerning Trump, noting in the document he was the “current U.S. president.” The woman, according to the interview summary, asked “what the point would be of providing the information at this point in her life when there was a strong possibility nothing could be done about it.” Trump has faced allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct before, including accusations from multiple women who came forward during the 2016 presidential campaign. In 2023, he was found liable by a federal jury for having sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll after Carroll claimed Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and then denied her account of rape, calling her a liar. Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the $5 million judgment the jury awarded Carroll. Carroll also won a $83.3 million judgment in 2024 after a separate jury found Trump defamed her with an additional set of remarks about the same claims. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating whether the Epstein-related documents were improperly withheld from public view. “For the last few weeks, Oversight Democrats have been investigating the FBI’s handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against President Donald Trump by a survivor,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the committee, said in a statement last week. “Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes,” he added. In a post on social media in response to the statement, the Justice Department said Oversight Democrats “should stop misleading the public while manufacturing outrage from their radical anti-Trump base,” adding that “NOTHING has been deleted.” “If files are temporarily pulled for victim redactions or to redact Personally Identifiable Information, then those documents are promptly restored online and are publicly available,” the post continued. “ALL responsive documents have been produced unless a document falls within one of the following categories: duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation.” The documents come as the Trump administration continues to battle criticism over its handling of the files, about 3.5 million of which it published in late January. In addition to accusations over withholding certain records, the department has also come under fire from lawmakers for improperly disclosing identifying information of victims and for redacting the names of some men. On Wednesday, a House committee voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify about her handling of the Epstein files.